Summer Garden Drawn Thread Project

This week I started a (yet another!) new project. This one's a bit different as it's my first try at drawn thread work, which is downright scary to do at times!!!

I'm working on a SAL with Serinde from Cross Stitch Forum (although she hasn't started yet and I'm feeling very lonely - come on girl, get stitching!!!). We're working on the Summer Garden Garden project from Patricia Bage's beautiful book "Beginner's Guide to Drawn Thread Embroidery".

So here are my updates so far:

The fabric is 28 count linen and floss is DMC stranded and perle, and Caron Waterlillies, Rose Quartz. I started with some satin stitches

and added some satin blocks to 'hold' the cut areas

Then the moment of truth!! I snipped the fabric and drew out the threads. Not really difficult, but knowing that if you get it wrong, the whole thing is ruined is quite terrifying! I was going cross-eyed trying to count threads to make sure I was cutting in the right place.

Once cut, there are some lovely decorative stitches in this project

And here's where I've got to. The beads are Mill Hill and were quite lovely (and surprisingly easy) to add into the design.

More updates on this soon.